This invention relates generally to optical signal transmission, and more particularly the invention relates to an improved photodetector and method of detecting optically transmitted signals.
The transmission of data optically through optical fibers permits the rapid transfer of large quantities of information. While a television channel, for example, transmits information in a bandwidth of 6 MHz, light, in theory, has a bandwidth that is many million times that of a TV channel. Potentially, using optical transmission, 10 trillion bits of information could be sent in a second.
However, in order to use light to send large amounts of data at high speed, one needs very short light pulses and therefore very fast photodetectors. Conventional photodetectors are either very small or very inefficient, and are therefore limited in their ability to measure the intensity of light with fine time resolution.